Pourriture
by Shades of Red and Silver
Summary: In which Haruhi only saw him four times.


Ⅰ

A late night. The institution bathed in the moonlight. Waiters walked around the glittering hall doling out crystal glasses of champagne. Tables of food with triple tiered cakes and slabs of grilled steak lined the perimeters. As if the gathering was to be a pleasant one, untouched by the past. For most of the people, however, it was a happy event. Seeing one's old classmates.

Haruhi Fujioka didn't know why she decided to attend the Ouran High School Annual Auction. Or rather she didn't admit to herself. Closure. Was that why she came? Flew across the ocean? Bought a dress? For one single question? _Why?_

The beads of her dress caught the light of the many polished chandeliers. Everything was as extravagant like it used to be. The year when her life was at its peak, and she didn't even realize it until it had all slipped from her fingers.

That sickening bright day when the sun was setting and she crashed into the water alone. Alone ever since. They were all alone ever since.

But life moved on. People move on. He went to France with a woman he just met. She stayed with the people she knew, loved even. He got married. One bright daffodil pinned to his pinstriped jacket. She graduated at the top of her class. An iris marked her graduation hat.

She knew the others didn't come tonight. They all gave out their reasons, explanations. Collage, vacation, business trips, sick, tired. That may be true, but it may not. She didn't want to come, rather she felt compelled to come. How had her happiest days be tainted with a feeling of emptiness? That is what happens when you lose someone you love?

Haruhi suddenly shook her head. It wasn't lovez, was it? He was a friend, one of her best friends. She had come to see why one of her best friends left her so suddenly, so decisively. _(right?)_

Éclair Tonnerre would she be there? Hanging on Tamaki's arm dazzling as she did on her wedding day two years ago? Dressed in jewels worth thousands of Euros?

Music pulsated throughout the grand hall. Was it dramatic? Was it calming? Why did it feel alive? Stirring feelings inside of her core. Pulling her up into a high before it plummets with low baritone notes. Much like the lull of life climbing and crashing.

He was mingling with others, she finally noticed. It was a plain gray suit…Haruhi caught herself. Tamaki being described as plain, dull. It was unnatural. Tamaki loved loud colors, more color, more meaning, more life. Everything had to have color.

A purple handkerchief. A classic symbol of prestige, royalty, wealth. All of these things were Tamaki. However, it was a rich variation, not like the lilacs of the Ouran blazer. They had grown up, and with his decision, his wealth must have grown as well.

She leaves. Not this year. The hurt is there. The regret is there. And he has moved on. The strong breeze of the balcony feels liberating as she escapes a confrontation she's needed for years.

Ⅱ

Three years later Haruhi Fujioka returns. Law school runs smoothly. Her father is still in good health and spirits. The others cannot attend again, and Haruhi finds herself looking for closure. She is determined to talk. To ask. To be free.

The Auction is dressed in its mocking glory. An orchestra set up to one side. Marble floors clicking under the heels of the insanely rich. Men chase, women flirt. The people are carefree and rich and happy and can sleep off the rest of their youthful lives dancing under Ouran's lights and on Ouran' s marble floors. Eating truffles and drinking aged wine.

But Haruhi Fujioka is not rich. She cannot be carefree under the light and mingle the night away surrounded by the voices so filled with money. A sense of belonging does not follow her even though in truth she and her hard work earned her a spot at the gilded event.

She comes not out of her belonging, she comes…why does she come? Many times, over the three years she explains to herself it was closure. Was it love she mused? All the years of missing, wishing, hoping, dreaming equals love? Perhaps it does. What could have been if she didn't crash alone? Alone in that warm water on that setting afternoon.

He is there and the French aristocrat is there on his arm. She is beautiful, he his handsome. Both are wealthy and seem to be perfect. He wears a beige suit with a dark yellow handkerchief.

They do begin to walk over to her spot near the temporary indoor fountain. He looks passive, indifferent. He now holds her hand, loyal, as the move around clusters. Loyalty. It was an interesting word used to describe him.

"Hello Haruhi," He says it simply. His excitement for the world has decayed.

They make small talk. Éclair looks with disdain in the opposite direction. Slowly inching him away from her. Another woman joins. Éclair and she begin in rapid French and wanders away.

The pair fall speechless. It was awkward, sluggish and notable. Haruhi saw Éclair wrap up her conversation and move towards the pair. Haruhi blurts the most defining question of all.

"Why?"

"I had too."

His money didn't make him carefree and happy and able to dance the night away in bliss. It tied him in a contract. Forever bound to a woman he didn't love for the convenience between the Souh and Tonnerre families. Forever bound for billions of Euros and a hope of a happier tomorrow which will never happen.

But not even money would have been able to bury Tamaki Souh.

Marrying Éclair was the only way he could see his mother.

Ⅲ

She returns once again three years later. Fresh out of law school, fresh at a law firm. She understands why. Now she needs to understand the what if? What if she realized sooner, what if she told him? Would he have stayed? Would all of them be together?

Hope has been the most rewarding and the most disappointing emotion in her life. Hope had brought her to Ouran High school, hope had found her success as a new lawyer. Hope had left her down when she realized her mother was never going to return, Tamaki was never going to return.

She found him quickly. He was wandering the outside halls, large windows let the quiet rain beat down. His hand was snug inside of his black pockets. A yellow-green handkerchief dotted the black suit.

"Tamaki- "Haruhi had stopped referring him as senpai years ago. "Haruhi, it has been a long time," he called out as he took a spot at one of the windows.

"How have things been?" Haruhi made her way towards his spot. Her Hitachiin designer heels made a soft click.

His face had narrowed, skin paled, eyes dulled. Her hair had grown long. Her skin was almost the same as it was in high school, except the sleep deprived moments when eye bags would form. She never wore glasses again after high school.

"My mother died a year ago," he revealed softly still looking out in the window as if his mother would be walking in the lush courtyard paired with a designer umbrella and wave at the pair when she saw them in the window.

Shock. The most important person in Tamaki's life was dead. And Haruhi didn't even know. She couldn't be there for him.

"Tamaki…I'm so sorry. I-," she was cut off. "It's fine. She-she had been sick for a long time." He still didn't look at her.

"She would have wanted you to be happy."

"I can't leave. As much as I want to. Éclair is pregnant. I cannot do what my father has done." He looked at the ground. Haruhi swore she saw a tear fall.

"Give it time, the wound will heal, and time will pass," she said carefully.

"Thank you, Haruhi."

Anger. The reason for his living had gone out. But he couldn't leave, he couldn't be Tamaki Souh. Because now he was going to be a father, and Tamaki had grown up without one. And Haruhi no matter how much she wanted to see him free couldn't find herself ripping a father from his child.

Ⅳ

She saw him for the last time three years later. Now a renowned and successful lawyer she found herself again in the grand hall for an annual action.

She didn't run into him until the very end, but they were again in the empty hallway, the gentle moonlight touched the floor. The skeletal man wore a plain black suit.

"How is your child?" Haruhi asked. It was all over the tabloids. The romantic marriage between Tamaki and Éclair and their new addition, but she asked anyway. Because she never knew what to say to him anymore.

"She's healthy. She and Éclair are vacationing in Spain right now," Tamaki was indifferent to the prospect of having a toddler. "Why aren't you with them?" Haruhi asked.

"I guess I wanted to see you. You only come every three years." His new smile crept up, it was a ghost.

"We can't repeat the past," Haruhi realized as she spoke aloud. Maybe that was why none of the others ever came. Because Tamaki Suoh was a man of the past, a happy calm among the tides in life. René Grantaine was the present. He was the present and a stranger.

"I wish we could."

Three months later Haruhi scrolled through the various web pages of news.

 _ **René Tamaki Richard de Grantaine Suoh found dead in mansion.**_

Tamaki had taken a bottle of sleeping pills. His wife and daughter away in Finland. Rene Grantaine may have just died, but she had lost Tamaki Suoh years ago and never realized…until now.

Fin`

* * *

 _Author's Note_

 _Thank you very much for reading! This is my first story here, and I hope you liked it._

 _Please feel free to give me constructive criticism~~_

 _I don't own OHSHC or the Great Gatsby. Have a wonderful day!_


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